With spring training hurtling ever nearer and negotiations screeching to frustrating halts, Major League Baseball on Thursday requested the assistance of a federal mediator to help it and the players’ union reach an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The request comes with less than two weeks until pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training and two days after the last bargaining session between MLB and the MLB Players Association — a session both sides described as heated and underwhelming. The same could be said of negotiations as a whole, which restarted in mid-January after six weeks of silence.
The sides remain far apart on a variety of what they refer to as “core economic issues,” which include everything from the competitive balance tax threshold to the format of the draft. Neither of those issues came up much during Tuesday’s talks, which instead centered on two small aspects of the union’s proposal to combat service time manipulation and help younger players earn more money. So instead of offering a counterproposal to the union Thursday, MLB officials suggested the involvement of a neutral voice.
That voice could belong to Scot Beckenbaugh, the deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, whom NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman praised for his help in ending the 2013 lockout and who helped Major League Soccer reach an agreement with its players’ union in 2015. FMCS mediators do not issue binding rulings, as an arbitrator does, but rather offer an outside perspective to help facilitate negotiations and help emotionally charged bargaining sides see the situation more objectively.
Importantly, mediators cannot mandate progress. MLB and the MLBPA reached out to mediators during the strike of 1994. The mediation did little to push the sides forward, and the National Labor Relations Board eventually got involved.
When — and if — the union will agree to mediation remains to be seen, as does how MLB’s request will affect the negotiating timeline. MLB team owners are scheduled to meet next week and, as of Tuesday, the sides had not expected to negotiate during that time. More than 60 days have passed since MLB locked out its players in early December. The sides have discussed core economic issues on four of them.
